That E3 Thing Part One

Posted by oddbob on July 15, 2008 · Lovingly Filed Under Articles 
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That E3 Thing Part One

And so as everyone and their wife will know, the Microsoft E3 conference was held yesterday and tonight (for us UK’ers) brings us the Sony and Nintendo double whammy.

Truth be told, I found it more than a little disappointing. I know that press conferences and E3 especially are likely to bring out hives upon even the least cynical of people, but every year I go into these things with the vain hope that perhaps something will appear that really feels like it’ll set the world on fire.

I know, I know, it’s an incredibly naive take on things but you can’t take a guys hope away from him can you?

Spectacular and desperate?

Yesterdays Microsoft conference, to my eyes at least, felt more like an exercise in disruption rather than consolidation. Which whilst no doubt good from a marketing perspective, leaves little old me, the end user and casual observer of the market left wanting. There were surprisingly little in the way of surprises pulled out of the bag, and the ones that were launched with a tacky fanfare of faux sincerity and appreciation mean so little to me as to barely register on the meh scale.

Whilst the internet goes into meltdown over the already anticipated FFXIII coming to the 360 (such a predictable presentation which anyone with half a brain could have called the instant a Square Enix spokesman appeared at the close of the conference) I’m left sitting here, looking back over what was announced for all and sundry and considering what, if anything, of substance was dragged out.

There was a wave of worry spreading across the internet after someone announced on a rando news site somewhere that the Microsoft conference would be, and I quote here: “interesting, partly spectacular and a bit desperate”. Whilst the intertits got itself into a tangle over what that could actually mean (motion controllers, blu-ray add on, the usual candidates…) I’d manage to quietly forget the post was ever made. Until sitting there and watching the conference that is, where the quote came back to haunt me on frequent occasions.

You see, it wasn’t one “interesting, partly spectacular and a bit desperate” act the quote was obviously referring to but the entire conference and it’s not that wide of the mark. The first segment of the conference meandered along in a predictable manner as the big guns got rolled out. Fallout 3 seemed to be shown off a little early, the trailers providing far more entertainment than the game does right now. Fable 2 looked nice enough, Gears Of War 2 as predictable as you’d expect from a company that only knows how to make games with big guns - the only saving grace being that I could swear I actually spotted a bit of colour in this one. Resident Evil 5 looks like Resident Evil 4 only set in Africa and with slightly shinier graphics.

Pete’s Dog

Molyneux’s dog aside, the highlight of the first segment came from the rather neat co-op system employed in Fable II. The little glowing orbs that represent where people in your friends list are located in the game is one of those gobsmackingly simple innovations (from a user point of view, not a coders) that you wonder why it’s not been present in more games before now.

After we’d gone through the exclusive gameplay video’s for each of these games, things started to take what I could politely describe as “a turn for the weird”. We got some bizarrely fudged figures to remind you that a) videogames are bigger than God and b) the Xbox 360 will sell more units than the PS3 (quick, shuffle the Wii under the carpet chaps) and c) one billion dollars spent on XBLA. Which is a fair old amount of money being shuffled around.

My first reaction to c was this: “That’s enough money to fix the dashboard innit?”. Luckily, not 5 minutes later it appears that yes, yes, it is enough money to fix the dashboard. We’re getting coverflow with avatars as a new dash. Which is nice because I happen to like coverflow. The avatars not so much. From the brief glimpse we were given, it looks like the new dashboard is going to be infinitely easier to navigate and enable me to find games I’ve bought and find some games that are on sale not lost to their awful current system. I’m not sorry to bring this up again but the reasons for delisting titles just got ever so much smaller than before…

Naturally, rather than focus on the fact that the dashboard unveiling is something absolutely required to fix something that’s been broken for far too long, we get a shift onto the uses of the new avatar system. A “Home Lite” party system for sharing media, games and chat, a few bizarre quiz show games courtesy of a deal with Endemol (oh, how I can’t wait for these, they sound brilliant!*), Uno with avatars… yes, this is the point where the quote bounced around my head and refused to budge. By the time they were showing off Codemasters’ absolute abomination of “You’re In The Movies” both the part of me that likes “proper” games and the part of me that loves the increasing inclusiveness of the market for all types of gamers were crying like a baby who’s just been injected with a near lethal dose of smack.

Luckily, before they got round to inflicting some people making utter pillocks of themselves on stage, we were “treated” to a glimpse of the new Galaga game and Geometry Wars RE 2, both of which looked pretty darn fine. Worryingly though, these appeared to be the only focus on “arcade gaming” from the XBLA line up. Whether this is down to a conscious choice to play the disruption game and state MS intent on invading the casual space or is a sign that arcade gaming is at best a secondary concern for XBLA now, only time will tell. Judging by the recent XBLA output, I’m fearing the latter may be the case.

Bring out the horse

My eyes began to glaze over for the closing half of the conference. The news that Dylan is coming to Guitar Hero depresses me more than the Pistols ever did, having the downloaders friends Metallica inflict their dirge upon the world via a music game makes me sad and I laughed heartily when they announced that there was an exclusive track from Axl Roses remnants of G’n'R being released before the Duke Nukem Forever of albums that is “The Chinese Democracy”. The biggest crime, and one for which I will never forgive Microsoft was inflicting that horsey bint Duffy on me in the middle of a press conference.

If I were king, first up against the wall, don’t get me started, Bernard Butler should know better etc…

And so, as things were wrapped up, we were left with a slurring bloke from Square Enix who if I ever find myself suffering from insomnia again will gladly invite round for a chat to deliver the barely hidden megaton of a Final Fantasy game  coming to the 360. One in the eye for Sony, but hardly any great shakes for the rest of the non JRPG playing universe (that’ll be me, me and probably just me then…)

With the footage of Final Fantasy FMV XIII complete, the quote still buzzing around my head, I was left wondering just one thing. Where was the “partly spectacular” element?

*Sarcasmotron stolen from Bill at The2Bears.

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Speak your brains

2 Responses to “That E3 Thing Part One”

  1. Sillytuna on July 15th, 2008 11:50 am

    There are definitely some more arcade titles appearing on XBLA (we’re doing one, yay for us!), but it does seem like Microsoft pushed for casual and the publishers are delivering what was asked for (yawn).

    Incidentally, I’m not even sure most Xbox 360 owners know what XBLA is.

  2. oddbob on July 15th, 2008 11:30 pm

    I don’t think Coffeetime Crosswords and their ilk is likely to change that somehow either.

    Glad to hear there’s another arcade game on the way. I saw you mention it over at Chez Yak and had my interest piqued at “it’s something you’ll all know” :D

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